Papers, Please

After the defeat of Vashna, the Sommerswerd had been bestowed upon the allies of Durenor as a mark of trust and allegiance that exists between the two kingdoms. In return, King Alin of Durenor gave Sommerlund a magnificent golden ring bearing the royal arms of Durenor. This ring is known as the Seal of Hammerdal. At that time, King Alin vowed that if ever the shadow of the west should rise again to threaten Sommerlund, Durenor would come to the aid of her ally.

The King has given you the Seal of Hammerdal. Your quest is to travel to Durenor to fetch the Sommerswerd back. But meanwhile the enemy have broken through the outer defences to the capital and are preparing to besiege the city wall. As Captain D’Val of the King’s Guard leads you to the Royal Armoury to equip you for your mission, the King’s words keep coming back to you:

‘Forty days, Lone Wolf. We have strength to stand against them for only forty days.’

So goes the introduction to the second Lone Wolf gamebook, Fire on the Water. If you lose the Seal of Hammerdal on your journey to Durenor -- which can be accomplished either by having it stolen from you and subsequently failing to recover it, or selling it to a pawnbroker -- then the entire book becomes unwinnable. But perhaps not in the way you might expect.

When you arrive at Port Bax, you will need to get a Red Pass to enter the harbour. When you enter the harbour authority, apart from the red herring of the option to purchase a merchant's pass, attempting to purchase a Red Pass will land you here:

You enter a large room full of ledgers and files. A man wearing the uniform of a Durenese naval officer is seated opposite at a large desk. He peers at you inquisitively from behind a huge book and says, ‘You must have pressing business in the naval quadrant to apply for a red pass at this late hour. I shall need to see your access papers and proof of your commanding officer’s authorization.’

If you have collected the necessary documents on your quest, turn to 126.

If you do not have the documents he requires or do not wish to show them to him, you will have to risk showing him the Seal of Hammerdal if you possess it. Turn to 263.

If you do not have either the Seal or the documents, leave the room and return to the outer hall by turning to 318.

Note that this is the order of options in the book as originally published: Project Aon's online version switches the first two choices around, the justification being to make it clearer that if the player has the documents then the only way to avoid showing them is to also possess the Seal, which does unfortunately tip the game's hand a little that the correct thing to do is to show him the Seal -- which is the only way to get a Red Pass and so continue your mission. (The Seal is used as a credential in one earlier encounter just before you reach Port Bax,¹ but you can still progress beyond this point even if you no longer have it; it's possible to overthink things, but perhaps this is a deliberate piece of misdirection?)

The first time around, it will not be possible to have collected the documents, so if the player has lost the Seal then they will have no option but to leave, ultimately taking them back to the entrance to the harbour. This will place them in a potentially endless loop, being pinged back and forth between the harbour authority and the entrance to the harbour (which Joe Dever probably did not mean as any kind of comment on bureaucracy). But the second time they arrive at the authority (and every time thereafter), they will meet a young boy who offers to sell them 'an envelope containing a sheaf of official-looking papers' which they can use to get a Red Pass. However, attempting to use these documents, and so turning to 126, produces one of the more undignified deaths in the Lone Wolf saga.

The man pulls a hidden bell-rope, and suddenly four armed guards burst into the room.

‘These documents are forgeries. No doubt you are a spy, or worse perhaps? No matter, you’ll soon find out how we deal with criminals in Port Bax. Take him away.’

Before you can explain, you are seized by both arms and marched away to the city jail. All your equipment is confiscated, including all Special Items and Weapons, and you are thrown into a cell full of evil-looking villains. You notice that several of these ruffians bear the strange tattoo of a serpent on their left wrist: the sign of Vonotar² the Traitor. By the time the guards have examined your possessions and realized your true identity, you have been strangled to death by the wizard’s evil agents.

Your life and your quest come to a tragic end here in Port Bax.

In this way the book avoids ever specifically tying a game over to not having the Seal of Hammerdal, whilst ensuring the Seal is needed to progress. Joe Dever probably didn't need to do this -- he could have had a 'game over' section arising from not being able to get a Red Pass. (The next book in the series, The Caverns of Kalte, is famous for containing the one and only non-lethal failure in the franchise's history.) He could have left the player stuck in the loop, but that might make it clearer what they should have done. I find it an interesting bit of game design that the player is never expressly told they failed because they no longer have the Seal -- especially when they are given the opportunity to do something as stupid as selling it for 40 Crowns -- and indeed that Dever seems to go out of his way a bit to avoid saying this!

---

1. There are two different directions you can approach Port Bax from, and you will get a different but functionally similar encounter depending on which path you follow. ^↩
2. Misspelled "Vonatar" in original printings, including the one I'm working from. ^↩